<p>I'm an American student in Europe and currently in the middle of the IB program. When my school counselor checked over my grades from Y10 and Y11 - freshman and sophomore years - as well as my PSAT scores, he recommended I apply to both Yale and Brown based on my grades, my interests and location - namely proximity to airports for transcontinental travel. I didn't question him, and regarded that as a given until now that I've started IB and my GPA has begun to slip! I remain the top student in my year, suggesting that the program is taking its toll on everyone, not only me, but I'm curious as to what is expected for IB students applying to top colleges. IGCSE brought in an immaculate nine 7s and one 6. First semester IB I now have three 7s, two 6/7s, one 6 and one 5/6. What's the outlook here? Are all Yale IBers flocking in with seven 7s on their final report cards?</p>
<p>Yale and other colleges will only see your predicted grades, as your final grades will not be available in time for an admissions decision to be made. (Hence the purpose of predicted grades.) I know that Yale deems all applications from IB candidates incomplete if predicted grades aren’t included, so it’s safe to say that they’re considered as part of a student’s transcript in the admissions process. That said, admissions officers have to understand that many schools give harsh predictions, and students often do better (the stress of exam conditions pushes them to try harder). I know that last year, for example, I had a predicted 3 in IB Philosophy SL, but I ended up scoring a high 7 (I got a perfect score on the internal assessment and on one of the exams).</p>
<p>hmmm.</p>
<p>well, I’m in IB here in the states. the way my school does it is we take two standard level tests (like the actual examinations themselves) at the end of our junior year, then take the remaining four examinations the end of our senior year. </p>
<p>On our school transcripts, we just have the A/A-/B+/B… etc scale, not a 7/6/5/4… scale. For example:
IB Physics HL first semester: A</p>
<p>and then we self-report on the test scores part of the common app, for example:
IB Geography SL: 7</p>
<p>So, we don’t put predicted grades on our transcripts. I don’t know if this helps, but I have friends in other IB schools and that’s what they do as well.</p>
<p>Each school is required by the IBO to create a formal set of predicted grades for each student. Your guidance counselor would normally include these with the school report/transcript.</p>
<p>However, I checked up on what I said before, and Yale only requires predicted grades from international students. Page 3: <a href=“http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/application/pdf/paper_instructions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/application/pdf/paper_instructions.pdf</a></p>
<p>europlant, i am kind of in the same boat, except my im in the middle of IB exams now</p>
<p>my school reports grades on an A, B, etc scale. Except the scores are based purely on what percentage you got on the tests/exams, completely not relative to anyone else. And a B goes down to 65% or so. But when you factor in that in Year12, my mid-year exams were all “mock” IB papers graded at an “end of year” standard, and in some subjects a 7 is like 70% or so (History, Physics), I ended up with a whole lot of Bs on my final report. That doesn’t look too good, particularly in Year 12! Downward trend! The best you can do is explain how things are marked.</p>
<p>It’s a bit too early to tell. I don’t know exactly how your school grades but I’d be very surprised if you were working up to 7 standard in the 1st semester.</p>
<p>And on top of that how do you end up with 7 subjects? TOK? coz that aint marked out of 7.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard specifically from Yale, but I asked a UPenn admissions officer a while ago about the typical range of IB scores they accept. She answered that they would like to see a 40 excluding the 3 bonus points. Also, I remember seeing somewhere on CC that Harvard admissions look for 7 7 7 for HLs. That being said I don’t have an -exact- source I’m quoting from. </p>
<p>Wow rockermcr, a 3 to a 7 is a really big gap! Congratulations btw :D</p>
<p>And on a side note, there seems to be quite a substantial number of IB students applying to the Ivies…</p>
<p>renovatio – that’s exactly how my school’s IB system works.</p>
<p>unfortunately that means that, since 4 out of 7 total courses are spread out over two years, I don’t have many IB or AP test scores to report…just the two SLs that I took at the end of my junior year. I did get 7’s on both but I’ve heard that SL classes pretty much amount to zip when applying :/</p>
<p>Wonderful replies, thank you! Actually, predicted grades barely occured to me when I was writing this - I was under the impression that semester grades were weighted substantially more than IB predicted grades when applying to US colleges, although that could just be a European myth. I would have no idea whether a 7 7 7 for IB predicted grades or for semester grades is more attainable. For four HLs do they allow you a 6, I wonder? That’s the dream!</p>
<p>renovatio - That sounds like a much less stressful program - we take all of our “mocks” in January of junior year, and then again in May, and out of that determine predicted grades which do go on our transcript.</p>
<p>totallysunshine - I was indeed including TOK, as up until the IB exams we’re graded internally on a scale of 1-7.</p>